Last space shuttle launch rekindles memories for father, son

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Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer

Lou DeLuca views the memorial for the Challenger astronauts at Kennedy Space Center. He was especially close to astronauts Ellison Onizuka and Judy Resnick, who died in the Jan. 28, 1986, shuttle accident.

Louis DeLuca treasures a 1960s black-and-white photo of his father. The photo portrays a man with a furrowed brow and bow tie who, as a NASA engineer for more than 30 years, helped get astronauts to space.

It’s the image of a highly successful engineer — one that Louis, a staff photographer at The Dallas Morning News, has only recently come to recognize. That’s because he’s thought of Lou DeLuca simply as the good dad he has always loved dearly.

Earlier this month, the son drove his 85-year-old father to Cape Canaveral in Florida to watch space shuttle Atlantis launch on July 8. It was the last shuttle launch, as NASA closes the book on the shuttle program to make way for deep space exploration. Lou worked on spacecraft systems for NASA, but he was witnessing only his second launch. It was son Louis’ first.

“I feel sort of bad that I didn’t appreciate it” — his father’s career — “as much as I do now,” Louis said before taking his father, his wife and his son on the road trip to Florida.

“It’s called aging,” Lou responded and immediately burst into laughter.

“I’m definitely doing that,” Louis said.

Louis knew it would be a bittersweet moment to watch the launch. His father’s job didn’t just put bread on the table for the family. “I sense that he feels like he left a legacy with his family,” Louis said. “But his legacy really is helping send a man to the moon. It’s a pretty cool thing to have accomplished in your life.”

Now Lou, who lives in a Houston suburb, moves more slowly and asks for things to be repeated more often. But he has reflected enough to have this litany: “I’ve lived a good life.”

On the two-day drive to Florida, the father talked about the decisions he had made throughout his life. He knows each choice has led him to having a good family, a successful career and the toothy grin he has when speaking of his life story.

Born in Detroit in 1926, Lou wanted to be a commercial artist when he grew up. Then his head was turned toward the sky as he became fascinated by flight. He learned about planes and followed famous pilots during the 1930s.

After studying radio and electronics, he got a contract with Philco to travel around the world as the Mercury capsule spacecraft orbited Earth. Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program in the United States. Lou monitored the system and recorded data, sending Teletype data from Nigeria and Kanton Island in the South Pacific.

Then NASA was formed and hired him in 1961. He moved the family to Houston when Johnson Space Center was built. The main reason for the move was his sick daughter, the eldest. Her rheumatoid arthritis needed the finest medical care, and Houston was the place to get it at the time.

“I seized the opportunity to be close to a good medical center and settle down there,” Lou said. “That’s why I went NASA. It’s the best thing I ever did.”

His daughter, Nicki, died when she was 9. Louis said his father showed hardly any emotions in public, though the loss was devastating for him. “Lately, I’ve been finding out that he was a real guy with emotions,” the son said. “He wanted to provide for his family the best he could through something he loved to do.”

Lou retired in 1992. His son went with him to his last day of work and photographed the day. That year, Lou saw a space shuttle launch for the first time with his wife. Vera died in January 2010. They were married 63 years.

Since then, Lou has been traveling around the country. Earlier this year, he and his family drove to the Grand Canyon. Later this summer, he will be driving to Reno, Nev., for the National Air Show. “I’m footloose and fancy-free,” he said jokingly.

In Florida, Lou reunited with a few of his retired buddies from NASA. Some of them still get together in Houston for pizza and beer. “The whole thing was bittersweet for him, and he reminisced a lot,” Louis said. “But when he ran into someone he knew, his face just lit up.”

Then the day of the shuttle launch came. It was Atlantis’ 33rd flight and NASA’s 135th shuttle mission. NASA has built and launched five shuttles since it began the program in 1981.

Lou and Louis stood on the causeway, a restricted strip of land for those with credentials, to watch the shuttle launch six miles away. Lou watched the shuttle. Louis watched his father.

Lou, who is usually stoic when overcome with emotion, was smiling. But for his son, it wasn’t just a happy face. “He felt this deeper satisfaction,” Louis said. “It was this very deep sense of humility, … sense of pride in his handiwork.”

Louis, who photographed the experience, didn’t have time to feel emotional. Later, as he looked at his photos, he cried.

He said he has feared his father’s death for several years. “I love him and admire him, and it’s hard to think that it can happen,” he said. “When you’re seeing the end of a shuttle program he worked on, I know that someday I’ll be seeing the end of his life. It stirs some emotions that are sad that there’s not enough time left with him.”

For now, Lou still has things he wants to do — taking a cruise out of Galveston and spending plenty of time with his son, daughter and several grandchildren.

But when Louis looks back on the trip with his father, he’ll be reminded that his dad was a pioneer. “He had a very specialized job that’s not even going to be around anymore,” Louis said. “We’ve reached out to the stars, and he was a part of it.”

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